In the mid to late 1990s, Extreme Championship Wrestling had an ardent and ravenous fan following, all while being known as somewhat of an “island of misfit toys.” Paul Heyman had an innate ability to take the talent that had either been misused or underrepresented throughout their careers and turn them into stars. Unfortunately for many of them, after departing for greener pastures and more significant money, they would languish in the lower to mid-card in either WCW or the WWF. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the case of Taz, who departed ECW after nearly a decade at the end of 1999 to debut in the WWF. While his initial debut was a huge moment and still registers over 20 years later, with him debuting in Madison Square Garden and handing Kurt Angle his first televised loss in the company, he would soon be relegated to a bloated Hardcore division before moving on to a feud with the commentary team. Anyone who had watched his work in Philadelphia knew that Taz was capable of so much more, so today we will look at what could potentially have been.

Background

Having spent some time on the independent circuit, The Tazmaniac made his ECW debut in late 1993, where he would bounce around the lower mid-card, even winning a few Tag Team Championships with different partners and a brief reign with the Television Championship. During a match in July 0f 1995, where Taz was teaming with Eddie Guerrero against the team of 2 Cold Scorpio & Dean Malenko, Taz took a spike piledriver wrong that resulted in a broken neck. This would leave him out of action for the majority of 1995.

He would act as a manager for The Steiner Brothers during their brief ECW run before turning heel at November To Remember, aligning himself with Bill Alfonso. He was now built as an unbeatable monster with a mixed-martial-arts influence and focused on a suplex-heavy style similar to the Steiners. Now dubbed “The Human Suplex Machine,” Taz would go on the run of his life, first having a run with the Television Championship. After being repeatedly denied a shot at the World Championship, Taz would create the FTW (Fuck The World) Championship, which can now be seen around the waist of Team Taz member Ricky Starks on AEW television. He would eventually dethrone Shane Douglas for the ECW World Championship in 1998, going on to have a 252-day reign as Champion. After realizing nothing was left to do in the land of the Extreme, Taz signed a deal to move to the WWF. He would drop the title at Anarchy Rulz in 1999, being the first man eliminated in a three-way dance match with Masato Tanaka and Mike Awesome. He would still appear for ECW throughout the year, including a PPV loss to Rob Van Dam and one final appearance on television, being defeated by the ECW Champion Mike Awesome.

Tazz Reimagined

As mentioned, the newly-dubbed Tazz (a horrible attempt to avoid a lawsuit from Warner Bros. over the cartoon character) debuted at the 2000 Royal Rumble, defeating Kurt Angle in a glorified squash match. The rumor has long persisted that despite Taz and Angle agreeing to work a more realistic shoot-style match, with Angle taking some brutal-looking bumps to help get his opponent over, the people in the office immediately labelled Tazz’s style as reckless. This would explain the almost immediate nerfing of Tazz’s push following the Rumble. The night after the Rumble, we will also be keeping the same in our reimagining when Angle cut a promo about how he was not defeated due to the Tazzmision being labelled as an illegal chokehold by Olympic standards. This brought Tazz to the ring to lock in the hold again and choke out Angle, leaving him lying in the middle of the ring. 

From here, Tazz begins being featured in the semi-main event of each episode of RAW and SmackDown, leading into the No Way Out PPV. After defeating names from Hardcore Holly and Mean Street Posse up the card to Big Boss Man and Dean Malenko, bringing him into a feud with the other members of The Radicalz. At No Way Out, Tazz faces off with Perry Saturn in a hard-hitting eight-minute match. Taz wins by pinfall after a Tazzplex off the ropes. Following the match to send a message, he locks Saturn in the Tazzmission, which brings out Chris Benoit to make the save.

As WrestleMania 2000 approaches, Kurt Angle puts out an open challenge for either his European or Intercontinental Championships after winning the European Championship from Val Venis and the Intercontinental Championship from Chris Jericho. This brings out Jericho, Benoit and Tazz to make their case for either of the titles. This leads to a Triple Threat match between the three to determine who will be the first challenger for one of Angle’s titles. Of course, the match is ruled a no-contest when Angle interferes and takes out all three men with a steel chair.

This leads to the same style of a match at WrestleMania. Still, instead of a triple threat, it is a fatal four-way match, with the first winner receiving the European Championship and the winner of the second fall receiving the Intercontinental Championship. In the weeks leading to the big show, we see a variation in different matches involving the competitors trying to gain momentum and one-upping one another. On the go-home RAW, a tag team match is scheduled featuring Kurt Angle & Chris Benoit against Chris Jericho & Tazz. The match ends with Tazz locking in the Tazzmission on Benoit, who passes out while Angle taps out to the Walls of Jericho.

WrestleMania 2000

At WrestleMania, the four men put on a clinic that you would expect from them, being given 20 minutes in total for both falls. The first fall comes when Tazz once again locks the Tazzmission on Benoit while Jericho has Angle in the Walls of Jericho, echoing the finale from the SmackDown tag team match. This time, Benoit taps out only moments before Angle does, rewarding Tazz with the European Championship. The match continues to build from there and ends with Benoit defeating Jericho with the Crippler Crossface, winning the Intercontinental Championship. This keeps the original idea of Angle losing both titles without being involved despite his visual tap-out during the European Championship fall. 

Tazz begins a European Championship Open Challenge from here, facing and overcoming challenges the next two weeks on RAW and SmackDown. Challengers include Crash Holly, Al Snow, Val Venis and X-Pac. This leads us to Sunday, April 14th, where Paul Heyman would call upon the services of Tazz via Vince McMahon. While we will not go into all the details regarding the historic moment that a WWF talent wrestled a WCW talent for the ECW Championship, you can read more about that here.

Following Tazz’s defeat of Mike Awesome, he brings the ECW Championship to RAW and SmackDown in the same vein as he did in reality. Still, this time the interference from Tommy Dreamer during the Champion vs. Champion match with WWF Champion Triple H does not backfire, allowing Tazz to put in the Tazzmission as the referee throws the match out, giving Tazz the visual win while not defeating Triple H. 

Much like in reality, Tazz would go on to lose the ECW Championship at ECW CyberSlam 2000 on April 22nd, with the only change we make here being a change to him losing the title to Justin Credible after Tommy Dreamer’s interference backfires, as a method to keep him strong while still being the European Champion. This also erases the minutes-long Dreamer title reign that was needless at best.

Tazz returns to the WWF and continues his open challenges. From here, you can eventually have him lose the title at any point to whoever it is decided needs the strap for elevation while giving Tazz a much better first few months in the WWF.